I'm guessing the cr500 at the end was to see if B'elanna would clean house on the Hwacha', or was it to see if she would come back with more goodies than she left with? (Now there would be an interesting ploy, to keep dangling B'elanna out there and see just how much of Klayvor's fleet she can bring home before his puppetmasters tell him to knock it off!)

I really enjoyed this. Fast-paced nonstop action was just what I needed last night as a break from editing an article. At the same time I appreciated the view provided of the cultural divide within Klingon society that led to the civil war—it's much clearer now how Klayvor managed to scrape up as much support as he did. (I do wonder why Jurdak was on the Klingon Union side in the first place, given all that.)

It's nice to see the younger generation of Duelists get a chance at the spotlight. Krattak is clearly going to fit in very well around here with that problem-solving approach. The Science Gorn is just as awesome as we expected. And I'm definitely looking forward to finding out how B'Elanna met Karn.

I'm a little sorry Sub-Commander Karodis got killed off before she had a chance to do anything; she seemed like she could have been an interesting character.

>I do wonder >why Jurdak was on the Klingon Union side in the first place, given all >that.)

Klayvor's side didn't even try to recruit him. Unreliable. Lazy, stupid, and borderline cowardly. Only when word reached them that the "Emperor"'s wayward niece had been posted to his crew did they take any interest.

>I'm a little sorry Sub-Commander Karodis got killed off before she had >a chance to do anything; she seemed like she could have been an >interesting character.

Mm, I feel a little bad about that myself. (And for poor tlhamaH, come to that. He was clearly not a bad guy, just way the hell out of his depth. He'd have been better off being born into a culture that valued farmers or office workers.)

>Klayvor's side didn't even try to recruit . Unreliable. Lazy, >stupid, and borderline cowardly. Only when word reached them that the >"Emperor"'s wayward niece had been posted to his crew did they take >any interest.

Makes sense.

>>I'm a little sorry Sub-Commander Karodis got killed off before she had >>a chance to do anything; she seemed like she could have been an >>interesting character. >>Mm, I feel a little bad about that myself. (And for poor tlhamaH, >come to that. He was clearly not a bad guy, just way the hell out of >his depth. He'd have been better off being born into a culture that >valued farmers or office workers.)

In the end, perhaps this is why the Klayvorites are on the wrong side of history. There's so many other things you need to be good at if you want to be good at interstellar war. If you think starship design is a job for kuve, don't be complaining to us when the torpedo loader can be repurposed as a way to sneak onto the bridge, amirite?

It seems to be an emerging tradition that the 'Emperor' looses ships to Duelists. First to Utena on his first attempt at getting B'Lanna and again to B'Lanna herself. You would think he would learn not to stick his hand in a fire. Oh well, he still has plenty more ships to loose to children.

There was a line in a Star Wars novel once that went "TIE Fighters are the third-most abundant resource in the universe, after human stupidity and free-floating hydrogen". In this amalgamated universe, I would expect that D-7s also have a place in the top 5.

>There was a line in a Star Wars novel once that went "TIE Fighters are >the third-most abundant resource in the universe, after human >stupidity and free-floating hydrogen". In this amalgamated universe, I >would expect that D-7s also have a place in the top 5.

"We have how many ships left in the fleet?"

"Three, my Lord."

"Three? How?"

"There have been Duelists everywhere we've gone for the last year, my Lord."

-- Bob-------------------My race is pacifist and does not believe in war. We kill only out of personal spite.

I thought it quite enjoyable. It was a nice, thrilling action piece that just flows nicely. The bit with the Third Lieutenant was especially enjoyable.

It did leave me wondering if Zargh expected trouble with Jurdak and assigned her there hoping she'd deal with it. An alternative thought was that the ship needed an engineer, she was the best available of appropriate rank, but that Zargh and his chief-of-staff had a bet on whether there'd be more trouble with Jurdak after the initial bit of trouble.

>A little more seriously, the Hwacha' seemed officer-heavy to me. A >captain and 5 Lieutenants out of a crew of 12? Is this normal?

The exact staffing of a bird-of-prey is a bit of a muddle in the canon (there's a surprise! Star Trek weak on details? The devil you say, sir!), and the Hwacha' has a roster informed by a combination of a couple of different sources and simple plotting expediency.

To wit: The Haynes Klingon Bird-of-Prey manual (which was one of the main references for the story; the Hwacha' is a different class from the one depicted in the book, but their overall configuration and, we can assume, the deck plans are similar) puts the crew complement of a bird-of-prey at 36, of which six are officers and the rest bekk (enlisted crewmen). That's a little more in line with general expectations about this sort of thing, and allows for the ship to be fully operational 24-7 with three complete watches rotating (like a real-life naval warship).

On the other hand, the crew complement of the bird-of-prey in Star Trek III, the first one to appear in the canon, is explicitly stated in the film as "about a dozen", and Commander Kruge appears to have only two lieutenants (Torg and Maltz) - but there is never a single indication in Star Trek III that Kruge's ship even has an engineer or science officer, and he might've had a third lieutenant before he disintegrated the weapons officer; there's no indication of whether that guy was an officer, or even if the Klingons of that era even had them, as such, but he was the one operating the weapons on the bridge, which in UF, at least, is an officer's job.

So, we have a situation where I wanted Jurdak's ship to have a "night shift" where not much was happening, which argued for the smaller "skeleton crew" staffing of movie-Kruge's ship, but the way the KDF is organized in UF meant there would have to be at least four lieutenants, five if you include the first officer (and Jurdak needed one because he could barely be bothered to operate the ship himself).

If it helps, you may consider that Jurdak was well-known as one of the worst captains in the Seventh Fleet, and people would do almost anything to avoid having to serve on his ship. It may therefore be that Koloth-class ships are supposed to have 30 or more bekk aboard, and Command simply couldn't find that many who couldn't get out of it. Like jury duty in sparsely populated counties. :)